Intellectual property. California moves shake up prenatal gene testing market.

Sequenom9s 2001 patent on a method of isolating fetal DNA from a mother9s bloodstream to test for Down syndrome was thrown out by a U.S. court in San Francisco. Judge Susan Illston rested her decision in part on the recent Supreme Court ruling that natural phenomena like genes cannot be patented. Illston also wrote that Sequenom9s patented idea was not sufficiently inventive.